Austin less talented? If you trust the judges so much, then remember that he had the highest average score from the judges over the whole series. So it's pretty easy to argue he was both talented AND popular.

But his performance was very clearly inferior to that of the others on the night he was eliminated and thus his elimination was fair, unlike in the case of Cherie Lunghi and Heather being eliminated while John Sergeant stayed - and that was the fault of the public, not the dance-off.

The dance-off is just a dumbing down of the programme in my opinion to artificially create drama, and it is unnecessarily unkind to the contestants too. Also I would say that it is a more impressive achievement to do your dance best the first time around than be the best at the second time of asking.

I am happy with the judges saving one couple but I think they should make the decision without a dance-off and based on performance over the series to date. I am sure they are already doing that to some extent anyway so it would be better to legitimise it.

My personal view? (1) You would not be taking this stance if your favourite couple were getting the highest marks and (2) the dance off format gives an extra excitement to proceedings.

It's a bit like forming a relationship with someone you have met and then deciding to try and change them.

Maybe the 'public' they asked are the judges and the production team.

until the week he did not perform & received low votes & ended up in the bottom two

1 - I'm not that fickle.
2 - It absolutely does not! I enjoyed the excitement of trying to work out how the public have voted after finding out who ended up last and second last. The dance-offs always give very predictable results.

Keep the dance off........GET RID OF THE JUDGES

I like the dance-off near the start of the competition when it seems to have that fire to it, and it helps you get to know the couples more. But I think the dance-off should be scrapped for the second half of the competition as it starts to get tedious and frustratingly dull, especially when it ends up getting rid of one of the more popular couples of those left.

The dance-off works for the first half of the series, but for the second half it's just a mess and doesn't really reflect how the actual voting is going.

Get rid of the dance off. As to the judges I am afraid I have little faith, they have their favourites no doubt about it and if they feel it necessary to push them up the leader board by handing out 10s to imperfect performances they do so. They have their say after each performance and hand out their dubious marks, the public then have their say, why on earth then should the judges have a further say. Which ever couple end up bottom following judges marks and public votes should be eliminated.

I'm the same as many - like the dance off in the early stages as gives a chance for better but quieter celebs. But especially when it comes down to 2 dances and they base it on just 1 - its just wrong. Yes I want the winner to be a good dancer - but surely in both ballroom and latin and as its not just a dance competion, charisma is important. And not convinced judges don't have their bias like the rest of us. Not sure what to make of this year's final really!

I've no problem with the dance off, but I dont like the fact that Lens vote in effect counts as 2. I know he's the head judge, but I would prefer it to be based on a format more like X Factor, in which each judge has a vote, and in a tied situation...it then goes to the viewers vote.

There would have to be some careful wording of the soliciting of the viewers votes in that case. It certainly couldn't work with the existing vague way things are described.

For example supposing my favourite remaining in the competition is Rachel but I also enjoyed watching Christine. Earlier in the competition I would have been voting for Christine as she was the one who more obviously needed saving from the dance off. When it came to the dance off between Christine and Rachel I wanted Rachel to go through so it would have been wrong for my vote to be used to try and save Christine.

OK so Rachel and Christine were a bit of a mismatch when it came to the dance off, but please imagine they weren't for the sake of argument.

It is the old chestnut of being asked both to vote for our favourites one moment, and being asked to vote for who we wanted to save the next. They are not the same thing.

The best solution to a tied judges vote would actually be to have an odd number of judges.

If you use just the public vote for a tie break it wouldn't be accurate since people often don't bother voting for people at the top, but I think any ties and the elimination should just be done the original way, the person with the lowest combined score goes.

absolutely agree with this - it balances out the two things the show is about - DANCING! and entertainment - everyone gets a shot at both!

seems ok to me, even when it affects my favourite - you've got to be fair.

absolutely agree with this - it balances out the two things the show is about - DANCING! and entertainment - everyone gets a shot at both!

seems ok to me, even when it affects my favourite - you've got to be fair.

Well, you don't HAVe to be LOL! but its nice if you are!

As I recall, it was introduced soon after Spooney got the heave-ho over some lame dog with two left feet when Spooney should have stayed. In that sense, the dance off is fair. But the problem is that the darned judges will keep voting to keep their favourites out of the dance off, and elements of the audience votes tactically. This seems to cause strange results we may not have seen under the previous system.

It would help if someone told the judges that it's also an entertainment show, vote rigging by them causes more problems than it solves. Just vote on the dance, stop the ham fisted attempts at manipulation and leave the audience alone to decide what they want. One example would be Craigs love of that gawd-awful Bunton woman. Dancing was average, but she was not popular. As a viewer I don't care how well she dances - cant stick the woman so I won't vote for her - accept it Craig.

The format seems to shake a good dancer out of the pack who is also popular with the public by the end of the series!

What I'd like to see is a format similar to DOI. Judges have no power - advisory only. The two least popular with the GBP go into the dance off and the judges keep the best dancer.

I disagree that Austin is less talented - his latin was better than Lisa's in the quarter-final - the dance-off allowed her to coast through on her ballroom alone and I don't think that's right. The dance-off should either go on the later stages or be done on the two weakest dances. I'm seriously interested to know what Lisa will perform in the latin round because all of her latin is been unimpressive.

Anyway I think the public should have the right to challenge the judges marking and the dance-off robs them of that chance in the later stages. If the public vote makes no difference then there's no point in having it and if public judgement is flawed then so's that of the judges - can anyone honestly have watched Len blantently admit he'd over-marked both Lisa and Rachel and say that the judges are always fair and know best (and he's the one who is supposed to have ballroom and latin expertise)- I don't think so!! The judges are perceived at least to have their favorites as much as the public and to 'victimize' as you put it some people.

I don't mistake me think that the voting public can be wrong - I was sorry to see Gaby go last year but the dance-off didn't save her. I'm in favour of it in the early stages because it did save John Barnes and Matt DA - who possibly might have gone otherwise before doing their excellent salsas. However I don't buy the 'person at the bottom of the leaderboard deserves to go' mentality as in series four this happened to the two eventual finalists and if there had been a dance-off and possible judges manipulation of mark then Emma Bunton may well have won (although it might have been Louisa which most people would have been at least ok with) - a result that wouldn't have made many people happy. Many saw the dance-off as a tool to steam roller through judges favorites like Emma to the final no matter what anyone else thought and IMO that goes against the spirit of the competition - and I'm saying this as someone who never really rated Matt Dawson.

I think for a winner of Strictly to have any credibility they need to have been selected by both the public and the judges - we've lost that this year and it's sad.

I take the point where there is only one dance each and someone goes out on a Latin while the other dancer in the dance off was dancing ballroom but surely the reason Austin danced his Latin in the dance off was that his Ballroom wasn't as good on the night. I think what you really wanted was that he got to dance his best dance and Lisa had to dance her worst.

Actually, if there must be a dance off at that stage, then they should dance their worst dance. It gives more chance to show improvement and also cuts out the possibility of relying too heavilly on one good dance, when the other is substandard, which would have meant that Lisa's 33 point jive went up against Austen's 34 point AS.

I think when it gets down to the 2 dance situation, then the dance off should go.

By the time you get to that stage, you are left with the combination of most popular with judges most popular with public and most popular with judges and public. Way back when in the Sargent whirlwind, Arelene was asked to name her ideal final 4 and she said Lisa/Rachel/Tom/Austen. The final 4 was touted as best ever, anyone could win - etc, etc, - so why the big deal about handing over the combined score situation?

It could also, actually have worked in the favour of the eventual winner. If, for arguments sake Lisa or Rachel had survived a couple of evictions on combined score in the run up to the last week, rather than perceived favouritism by the judges it could have gone some way to negating the only in the final because the judges put them there scenario.

i second that.

A time for fresh one-liners, and impartial juding, with realistic scores. and not marking one couple up for mistakes and another one down.

I'd go with a poster on another thread, keep the dance off until the quarter final then just go with the voters.

And I quite like watching the results on a sunday, as long as I can get the result on here on saturday night. I cant stand suspense and enjoy it more if I know the outcome!

Logically taking the BBC's response into account why bother to vote when in many cases the viewers votes are worthless

I am in favour of a lot of changes.

I would like to see a maximum of 12 at the start, with combined scores over the first two weeks, one latin + one ballroom, and no dance-off the first week.

The judges using all the paddles (like Craig does). Maybe give them paddles from 9.0 to 9.9 or 10 to avoid hurting a celeb's feelings. Or a totally new and fairer system of ranking the dancers.

The dance-off couple who got the highest votes from the public, get the casting vote (not Len), and it is declared before the Judges give their scores.

The dance-off continuing to the week before the Semi-final (which would have 5 dancers, unless someone had dropped out). The semi-final would be two dances each, with the public eliminating two dancers (unless someone had dropped out during the series), leaving a 3-way final.

I've not been overly impressed with the concept of the danceoff as it seems to me it gives the judges a chance to go back on their scoring. For example Lisa was voted through over Cherie when Cherie scored higher with the judges.

Certainly I don't think the danceoff should be acceptable when it gets down to less than 5 contestants remaining.

Yet still the Dancing with the Stars (USA show) manages to produce a fantastic show without any of these issues and still has the capable celebrity dancers reaching the later shows.